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Winter Wellness: Vaud’s Secret to Everlasting Beauty

Vaud is known for being home to some of the world’s most renowned cosmetic surgeons, tailor-made treatments and luxe settings.

Laclinic Montreux

A favourite haunt for famous folk, the Swiss canton of Vaud is not only a fairytale backdrop of snow-capped Alps, the ever-serene crystal clear waters of Lake Geneva and some of the world’s prettiest of lakeside palace hotels, it’s also home to some of the world’s most highly lauded spas renowned for holding the secrets to ever-lasting beauty.

Laclinic Montreux, Montreux: Any conversation involving the ‘secret to youth’ and the name, Dr Pfulg, and you can be rest assured you are in the right place. Considered one of the top five cosmetic surgeons in the world, there is good reason as to why Montreux, one of Vaud’s scenic lakeside towns, has become a surgical tourism hub.

Laclinic Montreux

Set against breathtaking Alpine scenery, Laclinic Montreux was one of the first clinics in the world solely dedicated to the enhancement of beauty, and is unique in its hospital/hotel set-up, where upon checking out, you leave looking and feeling rested thanks to a nip and tuck, rather than days spent lying by a pool.

The driving force behind Laclinic Montreux’s unfailing reputation is Dr Pfulg’s passion and philosophy for facial surgery. “My philosophy, and that of my colleagues, is less about making people look younger and more about making them more beautiful whatever age they are.”

Clinique La Prairie

Clinique La Prairie, Montreux: Everyone from Winston Churchill and Marlene Dietrich to David Bowie and Mick Jagger is rumoured to have disappeared into this lakeside fortress at some point to undergo ‘Revitalisation’, a rejuvenation therapy which originally involved injections of live cells extracted from lamb foetuses. Having claimed to reduce cell division, boost the immune system, slow down the ageing process and aid repair and recovery from chemotherapy and chronic viral infections, CLP Extract is now taken from the livers, instead of the foetuses, of black lambs and is given orally rather than via a needle the length of Shiekh Zayed Road, though its price still remains forbidding: around £17,000 for a week's treatment.

Clinique La Prairie

Les Trois Couronnes, Vevey: Those looking to mix a bit of business and pleasure on their quest for ever-lasting beauty cannot look past the belle époque grandeur of one of Vevey’s finest palace hotels, Les Trois Couronnes. The first and only hotel in the world to offer skin treatments from renowned biologist and dermatologist to many of Paris’s chic set, Joëlle Ciocco, is what many refer to as a ‘magician of the skin’. A Paris-based biochemist who has spent over 30 years in the business, one of her treatments to try is the Sculpture Massage. “We have developed a technique that works to stretch the mask of muscle on the face, because treating anti-ageing is not just about the outside skin tissue,” comments Ciocco. “The stretching is really important, we work externally and internally on all of the muscles.”

Les Trois Couronnes

Likened to gymnastics of the skin, the Scultpure Mass age is a perfect complement to any surgical procedure and one of Ciocco’s infamous anti-aeging tools.

Les Trois Couronnes

Grand Hôtel du Lac, Vevey: Developed just last year by the renowned doctor in biology, Pauline Burgener, this personalised spa experience fuses science, analysis, skin treatments and tailor-made products to help achieve that youthful glow and reverse the signs of ageing.

The meticulous process – available exclusively at the Grand Hôtel du Lac Vevey in Switzerland – starts with an advanced diagnosis of the client’s skin. The results are then analysed by experts at the Dr Burgener Laboratory in Switzerland and Besançon University (Université de France-Comté) in France, where each individual genetic pattern and ageing disposition is considered to create a comprehensive skincare regimen. Back at the laboratory, Dr. Burgener’s team concocts a “therapy box” containing tailor-made cosmetics for each unique skin type.